Japan Hired a Thai Shopkeeper. He Used the Job to Help Its Prisoners.
Boonpong delivered supplies to Japanese-run camps along the Thai–Burma Railway.
He also secretly brought medicine to the men forced to build it.
The shopkeeper from Kanchanaburi worked with his wife, Surat, and daughter, Panee. Their supply business gave them access to camps where Allied prisoners suffered from hunger and disease.
They smuggled in food, money and batteries for illegal radios. A resistance network in Bangkok helped fund the supplies.
Boonpong also advanced money against prisoners’ watches and jewellery, keeping their valuables safe for them to reclaim after the war.
Japanese troops searched the family’s shop twice. His contract was eventually terminated.
The family kept helping prisoners in secret.
Then the war ended—and the direction of help reversed.
By 1950, former British prisoners heard that Boonpong was struggling financially. They began raising money. Former prisoners in Australia joined the effort.
The Australian government awarded his family £500 in recognition of their wartime help.
Boonpong said their work had been done “in the name of humanity” and deserved no reward.
When we remember the men who survived the Death Railway, how often do we remember the Thai family who helped them?